Stanford Swimmer Who Raped Unconscious Woman Gets Short Sentence

Brock Allen Turner, the former Stanford swimmer who was discovered raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster on campus in January of last year, will be sentenced to six months in county jail and probation. Prosecutors had recommended that Turner receive a sentence of six years, but judge Aaron Persky determined that Turner’s age — 20 — and lack of criminal history warranted him a much shorter sentence.

“A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him,” Persky said at Turner’s sentencing on Thursday. “I think he will not be a danger to others.” Meanwhile, the 23-year-old victim in the rape case, who had had a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit at the time of the rape and who had no memory of the attack, gave important testimony at the trial.

“You took away my worth, my privacy, my energy, my time, my safety, my intimacy, my confidence, my own voice, until today,” she said, reportedly directly to Turner. “I am a human being who has been irreversibly hurt.” And yet it’s Turner who would be severely impacted in his sentencing? Right.